Working Families Party petition challenge goes to court

An order to show cause why the Working Families Party Opportunity To Ballot petition for Seneca County district attorney should not be invalidated will be argued in Seneca County Supreme Court at 9:30 a.m. Monday.

The order was signed by State Supreme Court Justice William Taylor at the request of Working Families Party member Shirley Sobczak of Waterloo and Seneca County District Attorney Barry Porsch.

Sobczak filed the original objections to the petition, filed by Notary Public Angelo Bianchi of Fayette. Those objections were denied by the Seneca County Board of Elections.

Named as respondents are Working Families Party committee members Michael Hagadorn, Jennafer Heffernan and Melody Reynolds and the county board of elections.

The parties will argue the question of why an order should not be made to declare insufficient, defective, invalid, null and void the OTB petition for the Working Families Party for district attorney. An OTB petition, if upheld, allows an undesignated candidate to be written in for district attorney at the Sept. 12 primary.